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Political participation in Africa: Participatory inequalities and the role of resources

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  • Isaksson, Ann-Sofie

    (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine the role of individual resource endowments for explaining individual and group variation in African political participation. Drawing on new data for more than 27 000 respondents in 20 emerging African democracies, the empirical findings suggest surprisingly weak explanatory power of the resource perspective, both for explaining individual variation and observed group inequalities in participation. In several cases, the relatively resource poor groups participate to a greater extent than the relatively resource rich.

Suggested Citation

  • Isaksson, Ann-Sofie, 2010. "Political participation in Africa: Participatory inequalities and the role of resources," Working Papers in Economics 462, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics, revised 01 Oct 2010.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0462
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2077/23023
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Savoia, Antonio & Easaw, Joshy & McKay, Andrew, 2010. "Inequality, Democracy, and Institutions: A Critical Review of Recent Research," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 142-154, February.
    2. Paul Collier & Pedro C. Vicente, 2014. "Votes and Violence: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Nigeria," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 124(574), pages 327-355, February.
    3. Mozaffar, Shaheen & Scarritt, James R. & Galaich, Glen, 2003. "Electoral Institutions, Ethnopolitical Cleavages, and Party Systems in Africa's Emerging Democracies," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(3), pages 379-390, August.
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    6. Jackman, Robert W., 1987. "Political Institutions and Voter Turnout in the Industrial Democracies," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(2), pages 405-423, June.
    7. Erdmann, Gero, 2007. "The Cleavage Model, Ethnicity and Voter Alignment in Africa: Conceptual and Methodological Problems Revisited," GIGA Working Papers 63, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    8. Boulding, Carew & Wampler, Brian, 2010. "Voice, Votes, and Resources: Evaluating the Effect of Participatory Democracy on Well-being," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 125-135, January.
    9. Pedro C. Vicente, 2007. "Is Vote Buying Effective? Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in West Africa," Economics Series Working Papers 318, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    10. Brady, Henry E. & Verba, Sidney & Schlozman, Kay Lehman, 1995. "Beyond SES: A Resource Model of Political Participation," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 89(2), pages 271-294, June.
    11. Paul Collier & Pedro C. Vicente, 2014. "Votes and Violence: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Nigeria," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 124(574), pages F327-F355, 02.
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    Cited by:

    1. Isaksson, Ann-Sofie & Kotsadam, Andreas & Nerman, Måns, 2012. "The Gender Gap in African Political Participation: Individual and contextual determinants," Working Papers in Economics 530, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    2. Ann-Sofie Isaksson & Andreas Kotsadam & M�ns Nerman, 2014. "The Gender Gap in African Political Participation: Testing Theories of Individual and Contextual Determinants," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(2), pages 302-318, February.
    3. Sangheon Lee & Megan Gerecke, 2015. "Economic development and inequality: revisiting the Kuznets curve," Chapters, in: Janine Berg (ed.), Labour Markets, Institutions and Inequality, chapter 2, pages 39-64, Edward Elgar Publishing.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Political participation; Group inequalities; Resources; Africa; Afrobarometer;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O55 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Africa

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